My thoughts, tips, and ramblings after reaching level 60 — long post

It was very interesting to understand what has worked for you, as you are lvl 60 so you know what you are talking about :slight_smile: Thank you for sharing this.

Congrats on reaching 60! And thanks for sharing in your experience =^^=
I agree with and have noticed a lot of these flaws myself, especially hate when they use one word for different sounds… If there is a difference, they should use a different word associated with it so we can use that to remember which it was. And stick to one word for one sound as well -
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But I’m not to good at making my own (which is why I failed Remembering the Kanji at around 600, as they gave you the tools instead of mnemonics around there, and I failed at making my own =P )
I hope to reach lvl 60 by the end of next year =^_^= But time will tell =P
I’m in it for life, and will probably stay for years to come. Will have to see once i get up in the higher levels if I can keep the pace of leveling every Sunday morning or if I need more time per level. Not sure what I’ll do with the “quick levels” either =P

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Hey,
thanks your answer was pretty helpful. Since I am able to passively understand N4 Grammar, but not actively reproduce it. So I guess it would be ok for me to continue with WK and not stop it to focus more on grammar!

As long as you are satisfied with that level of grammatical understanding right now, and as long as it enables you to do what you want to do, that should be okay :heart:

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I still feel that I generally need to understand (passively) N3 grammar at least.

Anyway, N3-N2 is intermediate Japanese.

I am trying Bunpro and Tobira, to raise me to that level.

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Vargsvans - it’s a really excellent post and very useful to us newbies. Will keep us going. Currently at level 4! Good to know you averaged about 10 days a level, that’s a good target to go for.

First off Congrats! Also, just wanted to say that this really motivates me as I’ve struggled to stay even reviewing past a few levels over the course of the past year due to life and whatnot, but hearing how far you’ve been able to go really helps!! Glad to hear you’re enjoying the language!!

Thank you @Darrwest and @Phazedlite. I was honestly a bit hesitant about making the post since I wasn’t sure if I was just stating things most people already knew, but seeing how many people seems to have found it useful I am very happy that I did.

Best of luck crushing those levels! If you stick with Wanikani, all your hard work will pay off!

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Grattis @vargsvans! You gave me a ton of inspiration to keep going and really work on making better mnemonics. I’ve started on changing radicals after guruing them into the kanjis they turn into but I guess I could use a “cheatcode” to get them burned. They are really making me frustrated (that and the fact I’ve been stuck on level 13 for 100 days now!)

@vargsvans Hey there I had just a few questions, but havent read the full post just yet. I know bad habit but when I have something I wanna ask it right away, But what other things did you use while using wanikani?

Prior to picking up wanikani did you already have something you started to use when picking up Japanese?

this one kinda ties in to what else you used, but for me this is a solid platform but I feel like Im not learning real grammar or vocab. Just phrases, was this an issue for you too or overtime when you know enough kanji you can actually start learning grammar. For example, is there a certain level that is recommended before learning grammar?

Finally, congratulations! I hope I can be on your level one day, this has to be the second most serious thing ive done with my life so I plan to stick with it, and not just doing it because i just currently find it interesting.

I mention and link to an earlier post in the one you have yet to read:

https://community.wanikani.com/t/the-story-behind-my-first-burn/13137

In this post I go over my particular background, which is not that useful for someone who is new to the language since it entails studying some japanese, then stopping for 7-8 years and then picking it up again. Not really the ideal method :smiley:

But if you want to get a feel for what I used before using Wanikani, it is in that post.

Thanks for the congrats :blush: It will get tough and there will be days when you don’t feel like doing reviews. Just remind yourself why you are doing this. If your reason is strong enough, that will make you do reviews.

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Thanks for writing. There are some great tips in there. :slight_smile:

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Thank you for this post! I also love that you’ve explained that WaniKani is meant to teach independence, as well as the explanation of effective mnemonic usage. :smile:

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That is fantastic!!! Congratulations on reaching Level 60! :grinning: I just found out about WaniKani and I’m super excited about learning to read Japanese- though I read I have to pay to access Level 4 which sucks hahaha I knew this was too good to be true (and free) :weary:

Ever since this thread I was wishing there were WK shared mnemonics so that I could see all of @vargsvans wonderful mnemonics there :wink: So I’m thinking of starting to fix and maintain the community mnemonic script: [Userscript] Community Mnemonics (v0.9.7.8) - #128 by irrelephant

Ideally, I would also like to import mnemonics of higher level users and I immediately remembered your post here. I was wondering if you were willing to share your mnemonics so that others could reuse them? It would probably involve some effort since you might want to review your notes first before sharing them. So I would completely understand if you didn’t want to go through that trouble.

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Thank you so much for doing this. I don’t have a lot of mnemonics being a level 4 noob, but I will try my best to participate along the way.

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I’ll give you all my Mnemonics, everything is about Hard Gay, all 7000 or so.

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Thank you for the praise, I’m honestly a bit humbled. The thing is, almost none of my mnemonics are written down, and many of them have faded from memory after the kanji or word became second nature so I sadly won’t be of much use in this kind of endeavour. I think I might have about 5 or so notes in all of Wanikani combined :sweat_smile:

I also think that the best thing is to try to become independent in your creation of mnemonics. Wanikani already gives a foundation from which to build, but the best kind of mnemonics in my mind are the most personal ones. Many of my mnemonics involve friends of mine, or niche interest and those are very useful to me but would be useless to most other people. I also write in my opening post that I think consistency is very important, that せい should always be represented by the same character or thing, whether it be “Hard Gay”, “Sailor Moon” or “a bowl of cockroaches”. If one constantly uses other peoples mnemonics this would be hard to keep up.

I’m not saying community mnemonics are pointless, I’m sure a greater variety can be of great use to many people since people are different, but if I personally would have to choose between practicing making my own mnemonics and looking through several examples of other peoples mnemonics I would choose the former, and I personally would recommend other people to do the same.

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Oh I see. I have to write all of mine down, otherwise I would forget even my own mnemonics over time.

I do create my own but sometimes people post mnemonics here on the forum that are just very creative and then I include them in my own mnemonics. For example, I think, @Vanilla mentioned something about having either ninjas or jinns in the mnemonic, depending whether the reading is にん or じん which I have found tremendously helpful. I wouldn’t mind having a couple more of these ideas and seeing them immediately inline when I’m doing lessons and reviews.

But I agree, consistency is important. That’s why I thought a long list of imported mnemonics from a single person (or a few people) might be a nice starting point.

Thanks for your reply anyway. I have been working a bit harder on my mnemonics after reading your post.

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THANK YOU FOR THIS!!!

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